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THE GORE GORE GIRLS Starring Frank Kress, Hedda Lubin and Amy Farrell
The early 1970s marked the end of an era. The Godfather of Gore himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis, was going into a near-30-year retirement from film making to pursue his advertising business. At a time where many imitators were saturating the film market with gore films, Lewis decided to make his most extreme movie (until he came out of retirement in 2001 with Blood Feast 2), The Gore Gore Girls. Something Weird Video has released another Lewis classic to DVD on a whole new, unsuspecting audience, waiting to be shocked.
A chain of murders involving the horrible mutilation of strippers catches the attention of the local newspaper. They send their most prominent journalist, Nancy Weston, to get private eye Abraham Gentry to solve the murder. Gentry uses his charm, money and suave wit to get information from people as more strippers are murdered by the ruthless killer. Many people are suspected of being the killer; most interestingly, one of these is "Grout," a man who does nothing but sit at the bar, drawing faces on various fruit and smashing them with his fist. A much hyped strip-a-thon is the opportunity for Gentry to bait the killer, as reporter Nancy gets very drunk and steals the show. The killer stalks Nancy as she sleeps that night when..... Director Lewis wanted to make this film gorier and more outrageous than anything he had done before. Scenes such as women being beaten with meat tenderizers (and seasoned with salt and pepper), and heads being flat-out mangled are among the most shocking and strange in film history. Lewis added a lot of comedy relief to The Gore Gore Girls, and even had Henny Youngman, a highly respected and widely known standup comic, act as the strip club owner - thus adding to the wild comedy feel of the film.
As opposed to all of Lewis' films that came before, The Gore Gore Girls was submitted to the MPAA for a rating. The film received an 'X' automatically. This is one of the few instances where a film was released with such a rating based on violence alone. This was a time where the MPAA was relatively new, and some films (such as I Drink Your Blood, Warhol's Frankenstein and Dracula) were given an 'X' and other films (such as Blood and Lace and The Mad Doctor of Blood Island) were slipping by with 'PG' ratings. As the 1980s were approaching, film makers were facing having their films be released without a rating in order to preserve artistic vision. The home video market, an untapped venue for seeing films in their uncut form, was waiting to be discovered by consumers..... Something Weird Video presents The Gore Gore Girls in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The image is as clean as an early 1970s exploitation film can look after nearly 30 years. Some scratches are evident, but is in no way distracting to the viewer. The film appears to have been transferred from a high quality video source, as a prominent video dropout occurs late in the film.
The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono sound is a little low, but sounds as clean as the original audio source. As with many independent films of this era, the sound equipment was limited, but produced audible sound. In some instances, outdoor scenes are difficult to hear due to noises caused by traffic and location. An audio commentary track with Herschell Gordon Lewis, distributor James Maslon and interviewer (and owner of Something Weird Video) Mike Vraney is included. As with all other Lewis commentaries, this track is full of information. Lewis is an easy person to listen to, and he has the most interesting views on the film industry, then and now. Lewis reveals about his decisions to leave the film business and regrets as to not holding onto the ownership of his own films (as his films have become popular the world over, and in high demand).
Other extras on this disc include the "Gallery of Exploitation Art," and a gory scene from the unrelated film, Love Goddess of Blood Island. Unfortunately, the original trailer is not on the DVD. Something Weird Video delivers the final classic Lewis film to DVD. Their dedication to tracking down forgotten, "lost" films and releasing them to the market makes them a hard company to beat. Their catalogue is impressive, and they are releasing films that have been long sought after. If every exploitation film ever made is released on home video, Something Weird Video would have had a large hand in making that happen. |
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